Three things that stood out in Liverpool’s win over Manchester City
Liverpool beat Manchester City 1-0 in a crucial Premier League match at Anfield in Liverpool on Sunday. Mohamed Salah scored the only goal of the match in the 76th minute
With that victory, Liverpool climbed up to eighth in the league table with 13 points from nine matches.
Manchester City, meanwhile, remained second with 23 points from 10 matches and are now 4 points adrift of league leaders Arsenal, who won at Leeds United earlier on Sunday.
On that note, we take a look at three things that stood out in the match
Manchester City dominated possession from the outset
Manchester City, quite expectedly, dominated ball-possession from the start of the match. They had almost 62 percent possession during the initial 10 minutes and kept launching attacks at the Liverpool goal repeatedly.
City started with a 3-4-2-1 formation with Phil Foden and Joao Cancelo playing as the left and right wing-backs, respectively. Ilkay Gundogan played in an advanced role and ventured forward through the inside-left channel.
Gundogan also took a powerful shot at the Liverpool goal that was stopped by Alisson Becker. Erling Haaland also received passes from his teammates, but was not allowed much space and time by Virgil van Dijk.
Liverpool started with their customary 4-3-3 formation that became 4-2-3-1 with Harvey Elliott playing as the right winger and Diogo Jota on the left.
Salah was the lone front-man with Roberto Firmino dropping down regularly to win balls and create moves.
Liverpool made presence during latter part of first half
Liverpool came back into the match with marked improvement as the first half progressed.
Elliott, who had given cover to right-back James Milner by staying back and marking Foden during the initial period, started going forward more often and the impact was evident.
Elliott played a cross into the opposition box that was met by Jota, but the ball missed the net by a whisker. Still, Liverpool were primarily dependent on the long balls played to Salah for the Egyptian forward to make his runs.
City, on the other hand, started playing more aerial balls into the box towards the latter part of the first half.
Kevin De Bruyne, who had an ordinary first 30 minutes by his lofty standard, started switching to the right flank more frequently and playing crosses into the Liverpool box.
Liverpool scored only goal in eventful, entertaining second half
City started the second half with vengeance, putting numbers in front and applying pressure on Liverpool’s defense.
Towards the end of the first half, Pep Guardiola had instructed Bernardo Silva to move upfront and Gundogan to fall back to the defensive midfielder’s role and the effects were there to be seen.
Still, Van Dijk and Joe Gomez continued to defend superbly. Liverpool defended in numbers and continued making counter-attacks by playing long balls and through passes to Salah.
Salah almost scored after a pass from Elliott, but Ederson came forward to get the faintest of touches to Salah’s shot as the ball went wide.
De Bruyne then played a cross into the box that Alisson somehow staved off and prevented Haaland from scoring, but Foden scored from the rebound.
However, Haaland had committed a foul on Fabinho earlier in the possession and the goal was overruled. Jurgen Klopp then introduced Darwin Nuñez, Fabio Carvalho and Jordan Henderson in place of Firmino, Elliott and Fabinho to add some thrust to his attack.
However, the goal that came then was quite abrupt. Alisson collected the ball from a De Bruyne free-kick and sent a long kick into the City half. Cancelo failed to clear and Salah, who was beside him, ran forward to get hold of it and slot home past Ederson.
Van Dijk then made a brilliant clearance from inside the Liverpool penalty box to prevent a cross from the right flank from reaching Haaland.
Next. Three players Pep might have handled better at City. dark
Nuñez kept making darting runs from the left flank and Liverpool could have scored more had he been a little more unselfish in his approach and played passes to his teammates.